2. Why Punish Mike Piazza?

Pretty much everyone agrees, or they should, that Piazza doesn’t have enough, if any, link to steroid use to be shunned by voters. So why did he receive just 57.8 percent of the vote?

It’s not as if he’s not good enough. Piazza is easily the greatest hitting catcher of all time. His career OPS-plus was 143, and the next batch of catchers on the list isn’t even close to that number. The rest of his numbers are self-explanatory, and while he wasn’t a great defensive catcher, his bat more than made up for that.

So there is only one thing to conclude: Piazza is being lumped in with steroid guys despite there being no evidence that he did anything illegal. That is flat-out wrong.

3. Kenny Lofton didn’t get a fair shake

Lofton is one of six players in history to have 100 home runs and 600 stolen bases and four of the other five were first-ballot Hall of Famers (Ty Cobb, Lou Brock, Joe Morgan and Rickey Henderson), and Tim Raines, another guy who should be in the Hall, is the other. While Lofton might not be the offensive equal to any of those guys, he was an underrated offensive player and a stellar defensive center fielder.

I’m not saying he’s a Hall of Famer. The case is close and if he never got in, it wouldn’t be an injustice, but it should be considered for more than just this year. The injustice here is that he received just 3.2 percent of the vote and is now off the ballot.

If you’re going to penalize “steroid guys” for inflated numbers, then you can’t penalize those who didn’t post inflated numbers. The voters can’t have it both ways.

4. Curt Schilling shouldn’t get more votes than Clemens

Seriously? C’mon.

Clemens is being punished for his connection to PEDs. Fine. But there shouldn’t be a Hall of Fame with Curt Schilling in it, while Clemens is not enshrined.

5. The push for Jack Morris

Morris was really good in his day. He was not a Hall of Famer.

Yet, for some reason the push to get him into the Hall has reached desperate levels, and next year will only get worse since it’ll be his last on the ballot. This year we were subjected to arguments about how many opening day starts he made and how many eight-inning games he pitched. No matter what you say, he still has Rick Reuschel as a comparable.